As a TikTok Replacement, RedNote Is Okay. For Shopping Fashion, It's a Potential Goldmine
As America weighs a potential TikTok ban, users are fleeing to RedNote, also known as Xiaohongshu and Red Book (as in, Mao's little red book). Like TikTok, owned by Beijing-based Bytedance, Shanghai-based Xiaohongshu algorithmically serves its users an endless flow of content, including both video clips and static image or text posts.
RedNote's viability as a TikTok replacement? TBD. American TikTokers are currently begging for help learning new interface while Red Note veterans create English-language user guides.
But RedNote's viability as an outlet for fashion, especially for shopping secondhand fashion? Very promising.
One mildly viral TikTok lays it all out rather succinctly, pointing out a crucial difference between shopping for clothes on RedNote and TikTok Shopping.
TikTok Shopping is dominated by a vast array of third-party sellers proffering low-price goods, a setup that has earned many comparisons to cheapo "Everything Store" Temu.
And though it's integrated into TikTok's app, TikTok Shopping is itself a standalone platform accessed through a separate tab or links that direct users to products. It's fairly fluid but a little clunky.
Meanwhile, RedNote, sometimes referred to as "China's answer to Instagram," allows users to sell and shop products directly from their profiles, creating a seamless shopping experience in the vein of popular secondhand fashion site Depop.
This is a potentially huge upgrade from the comparatively impersonal TikTok Shopping experience and it's abetted by some impressively stylish outfits from RedNote regulars to sweeten the deal.
I downloaded RedNote to check things out and quickly realized that, unfortunately, there are a few strings attached.
The shopping tab, located at the bottom of RedNote's main UI, initially looks to be packed with the same sort of generically corporatized stuff you'll find on TikTok Shopping — luxury knockoffs, weirdo collectibles, tiny tchotchkes, all at worryingly low prices — but you can refine your selection at its top. In the "fashion" section, there was an abundance of similar fare but also the occasional secondhand goods.
I had somewhat better results when searching a specific brand. "Salomon," for instance, turned up both retailers offering brand-new sneakers and users selling their old shoes.
However, I was similarly unmoved when I began searching for folks selling secondhand clothes.
Perhaps due to my own incompetence — I cano't read Mandarin and though you can change the app's language to English, it doesn't auto-translate quite a lot of the text — I was only able to find a couple users selling things using their profile page's "Shop" tab, some of which was vintage and some brand-new. Further, it appears as though only verified shop accounts can list products for sale.
I also saw some users filling a "curate" tab with various items already available in the RedNote Shop, presumably being hawked for commission.
Not exactly the secondhand bonanza that the initial TikTok signaled but still promising.
Whereas the structure of TikTok Shopping is set up to encourage third-party sellers offering new product, RedNote appears to offer a framework that allows for both that and individual users selling their own wares, though it seems that one must jump through several hoops to actually list own products.
Still, the interface for selling from one's own profile has serious potential.
For instance, through your own profile page, you can access a For You page primarily populated by goods sold or selected by the people whom you follow. Similarly, users who list products can embed RedNote videos into the listing, creating a holistic scrolling experience.
That's serious promise, and that alone gives RedNote enough Depop flavor to make it more than a mere TikTok alternative. Although, assuming TikTok actually is banned, TikTokers will likely just be happy to take what they can get.
